As we were walking around the back lot of Warner Brothers the other day, a thought occurred to me. These façades, or sets that are simply fronts for stores, houses, etc., but are hollow inside, are a good metaphor for Hollywood. When you think of Hollywood, or you think of it the way we have these past three weeks, you start to see cracks in the façades and you begin to look behind the fronts that Hollywood has literally constructed. What you find is not pretty. Rather it is four shallow walls, empty, and incredibly dangerous in an earthquake. This is Hollywood. This is glamorous Hollywood.

The sets they construct for the movies are the perfect metaphor for Hollywood. It is a façade; a front for something that seems real and looks tangible, but in real life, it is hollow and not real at all. The stories and myths that Hollywood perpetuates seem so real because they resonate with some yearning deep inside of all of us. Thus what is so difficult to realize is that it is an industry of pretending: The actors are not really in love, the two-story house in Connecticut is a one-story set in Burbank, and when it all comes down to it, Hollywood is a business trying to make money.

To quote the Avett Brothers: “So you want to be in love like the movies/But in the movies they’re not in love at all/And with a twinkle in their eyes/They’re just saying their lines /So we can’t be in love like the movies./ Now in the movies they make it look so perfect/And in the background they’re always playing the right song/And in the ending there’s always a resolution/ But real life is more than just two hours long.”

I realized something a few days ago: Hollywood is really cool. This does not sound at all profound, but it was an epiphany for me. You see, I grew up in L.A. I was born in Culver City and I went to high school in Santa Monica, thus I view L.A. with that certain disdain we reserve for our hometown. Growing up here, L.A. was not cool or hip; it was simply where I grew up. More than anything, I was irritated by the questions that being from L.A. invited. No, I don’t live next to any movie stars. No, I don’t know any movie stars. No, I really don’t live anywhere near the Hollywood sign. Somehow, being from L.A. immediately labeled me as something, whether that is “cool” or “indie” or “spoiled,” and I really didn’t like that. In retrospect, I think I didn’t like it because I didn’t understand it.

So, a few days ago, when my perception of Hollywood shifted, it was very odd for me. I was appreciating something I held in such contempt for so long. I think this shift happened because of an important detail; previously, I had been viewing Hollywood and the “industry” from afar whereas now, we are studying Hollywood and the “industry” from the inside. We are being taken in and shown the strings, as Clay likes to say, when, as viewers, we’re only supposed to be seeing the puppet.

If anything, I think about the quote at the very top of our syllabus by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “You can take Hollywood for granted like I did, or you can dismiss it with the contempt we reserve for what we don’t understand. It can be understood too, but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.”